Alone On A Night Like This
by Tall Tails - Feline Jaye
Summary: The first anniversary is sad in a way unpredicted. Set post-First Class.


_I've been writting one-shots and posting them on tumblr._

_I figure it was a bout time I posted them here._

_So here is some angst (everything XMFC I touch turns to angst for some reason. Unsure why.)_

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><p>Hank doesn't like to think of the first anniversary.<p>

The scariest part was the date, he tends to think. Scary is the right word to use - it was more than just surreal. It was surreal like seeing walls begin to bleed. It was a horrific sort of surreal. That kind of sensation is what made it scary.

The anniversary was not the date of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was before he even met the Professor. Technically he didn't know what the date was an anniversary of. But it didn't take a genius to figure out and he was above average after all.

It must've been the date Erik and Charles first met.

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><p>It was Banshee who found her. He almost didn't recognise her since he was flying over the top of her.<p>

Her being in her blonde human form didn't help the recognition either.  
>Banshee had flown back to the mansion and was halfway through describing her to Havok while Beast tinkered with something behind them when the connection clicked. His description trailed off and all three boys stood in silence. They had snuck up on her, Beast's senses helping keep them quiet and hidden enough for her not to realise.<p>

The usually blue girl - woman, now - was blue in a far more figuratively sense. She was hunched over, crying.

The three didn't know what to do with a crying girl at the best of times, no matter when that girl was their guardian's adopted-sister who'd betrayed them all less than a year ago to conquer the world (or something). They'd all spent about half an hour watching her, before they turned and fled back to the mansion.

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><p>Havok hates being the messanger. He's afraid that one day he will bare news that will make the Professor look like <strong>that<strong> again. That same look he wore in the unlit enterance hall of the estate when the three of them returned from watching Mystique cry in the sunset.

Their telepathic guardian had been transforming, over that year. At first, Hank assured them that the Professor was merely dealing with trauma. Sometimes he'd have a slip of the tounge and the word grief would work it's way into the explanation. The glare that the disabled Professor would give Hank warned him off mentioning that, however.

The haircut - a short crewcut similar to Havok's own - had been the newest in the Professor's series of transformations. That along with the redrimmed eyes that made his blue irises all the more stark, his sunked greyed skin and the sharp angles of bone visble on the back of his clenched hands would've been enough to unnerve even jailbird Alex. But then his face wore death like it was an emotion, the only real emotion being heartbreak.

Trust the Professor to manage to cap of the overly disturbing image by saying such a heartwrenching phrase in the most broken of voices;

"She is so sad."

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><p>Beast really, really wishes it wasn't him who somehow got volunteered to carry the Professor out to Mystique.<p>

Even though the 'chair can't move over the grass well enough to get there the whole idea is still ridiculous. The biggest reason being that Charles wouldn't have to move at all to talk to her - she's not the one wearing a mind-blocking helmet. He knows the telepath picks him on purpose too. If asked, the Professor would reason it out as Beast being the fittest, the most coordinated. Basically his mutation makes him the best candidate. But Hank knows that he hates being carried - relying on other's for something that was once so easy, so basic - and the Professor actually chooses him because if he has to suffer being carried then Beast has to suffer seeing Mystique.

So he carries the Professor to her and sets him down next to the woman whose crying has now turned into the silent kind. Hank begins to back away but is only a step or two away when the Professor speaks.

"Hello Raven."

The shivering and crying stops immediately. Then the shapeshifter unfolds out of her upright fetal position and does something Hank would never have believed had he not seen the Xavier sister do it with his own eyes.

She shoves Charles.

She shoves him hard enough that he looses balance and falls over. His palms slip and his faces scrapes into the ground. Hank can just imagine the Professor trying to move his legs to compensate for the fall. It may have been a year but old habits die hard.

The beast within him wants to lunge at Mystique - he's completely outraged at what she's done. But Hank has control over his mutation and so he restrains himself and picks up the Professor instead.

Raven stands and yells after them as he quickly strides away, not trusting himself to run.

"I know what we did! I know how we hurt you! I've been hearing it all day and I don't need to see it from you too!"

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><p>Sean sits in the windowsill, glad they picked a room where he can keep an eye on Mystique. No one else is watching and, even in this doom-covered situation he feels a little pride at being trusted like this.<p>

Havok and Beast sit together. He can hear them muttering but can't always pick up the words. From the few words he does pick up, however, it's not to hard to piece together what they're talking about. They're planning, strategising. They're planning on how to deal with Mystique - and what to do if her new boss shows up.

Sometimes, he hears them say 'Professor'. He wonders what plan they could have for their mutaul guardian that they haven't already tried.

He's got one eye and ear on Mystique and the other ear and eye on the conversation and no senses left to pay attention to what the Professor is actually doing. It becomes fairly apparently though when the man swipes his arm across the board in front of him with a yell and scatters chess pieces around the room.

The three boys stare at him in silent shock as he just sits in his wheelchair and pants with exhaustion.

And in the corner of his eye, Sean spots someone appear out of nothingness next to Raven.  
>Two someones.<p>

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><p>Alex really, really wants to jump out the window and send a few of his blasts right at that damn red cape. Or, more specifcally, at the man wearing said cape. Then anger in him is practically bubbling. That man - the one who left them, abandonded them, left Charles who cared so much for him in his darkest hour - he <strong>dares<strong> step onto their land? So close to their home?

In fact he's already stepped up to the window, freshly shattered from Banshee's shocked scream. but a voice echoes in his head sounding as if it's an old thought that just repremands him.

_If you're going to make such a fool of your self at least use the front door._

So Alex turns on the only person the voice could've come from. He glares down at the Professor only just not bareing his teeth.

"So you think we should just let him do that? Wander into here anytime he likes?"

"You may recall, Alex, that you do not own this house."

"Bullshit - you said it was ours."

"Legally it is mine."

"You said it was **ours**." Because that seemed important for some reason.

"Yes I did and I still believe it-"

"Then I don't want him anywhere near our house!"

"But if you use that as a basis for this house being **your's** then this house is as much **his** as it is **your's**."

They stare each other down until Sean breaks the tense silence. He tells them that Magneto has left anyway.

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><p>Erik leaves Mystique with Angel. Emma is too cold for the emotional state the young mutant woman is in and the boys aren't the best with English - no matter tear-distorted English. He dismisses the rest of his little Brotherhood with a wave of his hand and has to enforce the dismissal with a stern word to Emma before she leaves.<p>

In his room, he waits. He sits on his bed and he waits. Eventually the atmosphere feels right though - just to make sure - he makes use of one of the newest skills he's found and checks Miss Frost's heartrate through the iron in her blood. Sure enough her heart is beating to a sleeping mutant's rythym.

Then, and only then, does he slowly slide his helmet off.

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><p>Alex leaves first, storming off and probably blowing up a few mannequins before he retires to bed.<p>

Sean leaves second, awkwardly following Havok a few moments to late to seem natural. He will probably try to talk to Alex, fail and then promptly go to bed.  
>Hank leaves least, hovering just a bit too far away from the Professor and trying to broach the ever delicate subject of Raven. He gives up in the end and returns to sleep in his lab.<p>

Then Charles stretches out his mind, and he waits. What he's doing would normally be impossible without Cerebro. But the young telepath has training and most off all he has a connection to use in this case. He lets the thoughts of the world sink over him, hearing and feeling and experiencing everyone he can touch. He reaches and reaches and reaches and waits. It takes time but he feels it. He feels the one mind in the world that can just dissappear from him.

Then, and only then, does he feel whole once more.

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><p>"I thought I was alone."<p>

"You're not alone."

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><p><em>I have my own order for that last dialogue, but I leave it up to your own minds.<em>

_There you are, reviews are nice._

_(I will finish my chaptered stories eventually...)_


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